This is an adaptation of Robert Harris’ Second World War thriller. It is a film which has perhaps surprising contemporary, relevance in a genre which is often critically dismissed. The film focuses on the much maligned British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and three young friends, two German and one British who meet at Oxford, their friendship is though tested by the war.
Paul Hartman, played by Janis Niewohner, is a Nazi sympathiser who sees the party as restorative force for German national pride after the disaster of World War 1, despite having a much more politically astute Jewish girlfriend, Lenya played by Liv Lisa Fries. While Paul idolizes the Nazi party, Lenya tries to persuade him to the reality of what they are but he refuses to listen. George McKay plays Hugh Legat, the final member of this trio, a British student with political ambitions who is content to just accept the status quo. The film moves forward in time to the eve of Second World War, where their lives have dramatically changed. Paul has now awakened to the horrors the Nazis present and is willing to do anything to stop them.
Lenya, being Jewish, is already a victim of their brutality and Hugh Legat is an assistant to the sitting prime minister Neville Chamberlain. He will now be forced to choose between his career ambitions and his moral compass when Paul passes to him a communiqué which clearly points to the fact that Hitler had no intention of fulfilling his promise to not invade a fellow European country.
Munich shows how easily patriotism can be used as a political weapon and in the process mask something far darker. Paul, an early Nazi supporter completely changes to someone who believes the only way to secure a peaceful future for Germany is to assassinate the Führer. Paul though worried about his career prospect is reluctant to become involved, meanwhile Chamberlain is presented as a man who may have been far more pragmatic and intelligent than those living at the time would have given him credit for. With countries throughout the world embracing elements of the far right, Munich: Edge of War could be seen as a warning of what happens when we fail to learn the lessons of the past.
